Conference programming team: Maja Dobkowska, Justyna Droń, Anna Grajewska, Justyna Mazur-Kiwer, Marta Wójcicka
Promotion: Małgorzata Kmita-Fugiel, Zofia Mikołajska, Martyna Nowak
Visual identity: Wojtek Janikowski
Co-organizers: A Sztuka? Foundation, the Małopolska Region Institute of Culture
Media patronage: TVP 3 Kraków, Mint Magazine, Magazyn Szum, Gazeta Wyborcza
The project is co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage through the Culture Promotion Fund, which is a state special-purpose fund, within the framework of the Cultural Education program carried out by the National Cultural Center.
ISKRA: a Summer Art and Education Lab is a five-day cycle of workshops addressed to experienced organizers of cultural activities, cultural educators, and teachers, who want to go beyond tried and tested solutions and avoid professional rut. It’s an offer for those who work with processes and relations in the local dimension, but feel that they need a new impulse, a fresh language, and a real exchange with other practitioners.
ISKRA is five days of discovering together how contemporary art may open a space for discussion, building relations, and developing imagination. The program is addressed to individuals who work with children and the youth in schools and cultural institutions and who want to develop their skills in terms of utilizing the potential of art in everyday educational practice.
ISKRA is a program created together with artists who consider working with children or the youth an important element of their creative practice. Five artists have been invited; each of them will host one of the workshop days, sharing their practices and methods of work. These will be Daniel Arbaczewski, Justyna Mędrala, Dominika Szala-Wentland, Monika Szpunar, Izabela Rutkowska, and Jaśmina Wójcik.
The ISKRA program covers working with the body, objects, space, sound, and image. Through experiments and joint exercises, the participants will be able to experience how diverse artistic practices affect the way of thinking, communication in a group, and the stimulation of imagination. One important theme will be the practice of including the voice of children and the youth in the creative process: listening to their perspectives, responding to their ideas, and treating them as co-creators and not just addressees of activities.
ISKRA is also about having time for yourself to look at your own experiences and exchange them with others; a time when you can not only get inspired, but also ask questions and have doubts. The warmth and the rhythm of the summer day that is a part of ISKRA allows for being together in a more free and relaxed way than in the case of everyday work.
Practical information:
What is the cost of participation in the program?
The cost of participation in the five-day ISKRA program is PLN 300. Cricoteka provides coffee breaks and a lunch. The costs of travel and accommodation have to be covered by the participants.
What does the recruitment process look like?
Recruitment takes place through the recruitment form. Applications can be sent until June 24th, end of day.
Sending an application form does not mean you will automatically be qualified to participate in the ISKRA program. The list of qualified persons will be published on June 26th on the websites of Cricoteka and the A Sztuka? Foundation. The qualified persons will be sent a link to purchase a ticket. If you need an invoice, one can be issued.
When does ISKRA: a Summer Art and Education Lab take place?
Duration: August 17th to 21st (five workshop days).
Duration of a workshop day: from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM (coffee breaks and joint lunch are provided).
Who is responsible for the program?
The program is carried out by the Kraków-based CRICOTEKA Center for Documenting the Art of Tadeusz Kantor thanks to the co-financing provided by the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage within the framework of the Cultural Education 2026 program. The subject-matter partner of the program is the A Sztuka? Foundation.
Authors of the ISKRA program:
Daniel Arbaczewski – the host of the first workshop day of the ISKRA program. He works at the MICET Center for Theatrical Education where, as an educator and a manager of culture, he creates projects that engage young audiences. His professional path combines acting, directing, and teaching. He studied in Wrocław and, for many years, contributed to the successes of the H. Ch. Andersen Theater in Lublin. He also cooperated with the Teatr Pinokio in Łódź and won the contest for the position of the director of the Baj Pomorski Theater in Toruń.
Dominika Szala-Wentland – the host of the second workshop day of the ISKRA program. She is a contemporary dance instructor, dancer, and improviser, also dealing with theory and history of dance. For more than 15 years now, she has been organizing classes for children, the youth, and adults on broadly understood contemporary dance and movement improvisation. She holds a degree in cultural studies and dance theory, and has also completed a course at the Body-Mind Centering in Bratislava, with a specialization in Infant Development Movement Education.
Justyna Mędrala – the host of the third workshop day of the ISKRA program. She works as a visual artist and a lecturer at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (2013), where she got her PhD in 2018. In her creative work, she incorporates e.g. the raw materials used in industry, such as coal, asphalt, and petroleum. She is also active in the areas of drawing, sculpting, and artistic installations. For a time, she worked as an educator at the Department of Art Knowledge of the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków.
Izabela Rutkowska – the host of the fourth workshop day of the ISKRA program. She is a designer, the founder of the Formy i Kształty Foundation and the Zoochitecture Studio, and a lecturer at the School of Form. In her artistic work, she focuses on projects concerning space and its users. Her works have been exhibited all over the world. Together with children, she created a playground in Madrid featuring a 120-meter-long snake, and, since 2015, has been transforming a local residential area in Wrocław, a process that started with installing a 7-meter-long hedgehog.
Jaśmina Wójcik – the host of the fifth workshop day of the ISKRA program. She is an activist, a visual artist, a director, and an educationalist, as well as an actor and the initiator of a multi-disciplinary project carried out between 2011 and 2019 together with the former workers of the Ursus tractor factory, which combined art and social activism and was summarized with a documentary entitled Symfonia Fabryki Ursus. One of her areas of focus is inclusion and empowerment of communities that are invisible and unable to speak for themselves. She also works with children, engaging them in artistic and social dialog.
Monika Szpunar – between Monday and Friday, she will be responsible for the open-air morning warm-up before workshop sessions. She is a dance artist, a performer, and a choreographer working internationally, mainly in Poland, the Czech Republic, France, and the United Kingdom. She is interested in bringing movement into new and unconventional areas, using dance in social activities, and investigating the area where choreography and other branches of art and knowledge come together.
Anna Grajewska – the originator and curator of the ISKRY program. She co-manages the A Sztuka? Foundation dedicated to increasing the presence of art in education and social life and co-curates the Wild Frolicking. Exhibition for All exhibition at Cricoteka. In her everyday work, she focuses on cultural education and on training and advisory services in the culture sector.
- Type:
- Time: 21/08/2026 - 18:00 - 20:00
- Venue:Kino Mikro
